Post #338902 by VanTiki on Tue, Oct 16, 2007 8:28 PM

Aloha Folks -

Time for a VanTiki Studio update! I've finally had A chance to wire up the "Tiki Fire" for the 2 light-up mugs that I'll be glazing this week. I'm no electrical whiz - but VanTiki senior sure is, and he helped me out with the power needs for properly wiring a neat and simple LED flicker set up developed here:

http://www.spookyblue.com/halloween/flickerlight/spookyfire/

and improved upon here:

http://homepage.mac.com/nephilim/imagineerieing/spookyfire.html

I wired up three neat flickering doo-dads, which I dub the Tiki Fire Mark 1, 2, and 3. Here is the "brains" of the Mark 2 model during construction (and yes, your eyes do not deceive, this switch was apparently made in "Taiway"):

Next up we have a side-by-side shot of the completed Mark 2 and Mark 3 Tiki Fire devices:

And finally a look at the oh-so-retro Tiki Fire Mk. 3 in the palm of my hand. You know Goldfinger had one of these in his desk drawer. :)

They look really neat flickering away - even in the bottom of a normal tiki mug (though you wouldn't want to add rum)! I'll get a movie on the VanTiki site as the mugs progress. Mahalo for peeking!

Henrik "VanTiki"

P.S. If you wanna make a few of these for halloween (and I highly suggest you do!) be sure to follow the note about adding a 150 ohm resistor to the non-blinking yellow LED on the spookyfire web site.